Henry VIII and St. Paul at Ephesus

A long lost tapestry of a series of tapestries commissioned by Henry VIII has been discovered and is on display in London:

The tapestry, which depicts a spectacular bonfire at its centre with Saint Paul directing the burning of irreligious books of magic, was ordered by Henry VIII to assert his religious authority during the destructive phase of the English Reformation. The strongly political work raises timeless issues of power, censorship, the control of ideas and justifications for the destruction of cultural property. The tapestry was designed for the King by Pieter Coecke van Aelst (the preparatory drawing survives in Ghent and a fragment of the full cartoon in New York). It is woven with gold and silver threads and is one of the most sumptuous and important Renaissance tapestries ever to be shown in the UK, from both an artistic and a historical point of view.

Thomas P Campbell, former Director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and an authority on renaissance tapestry, gave a lecture earlier this month:

Dr Campbell has described the rediscovered tapestry as ‘the Holy Grail of Tudor Tapestry’. Before 2007, he had examined all the documents around this lost set for his book Henry VIII and the Art of Majesty: Tapestries at the Tudor Court (2007). Though at the time assumed destroyed- with meticulous detective work using archival records such as the Great Wardrobe Accounts, inventories, other Saint Paul tapestries and original artwork, he had been able to reconstruct and describe the missing set and its measurements.

This tapestry- nearly 20 ft wide- is the only surviving from the remarkable set of nine known as ‘The Life of Saint Paul’, depicting the principal events from the Saint’s life.

Recent research shows that this tapestry had been in England until the late 1960s when it was acquired by a dealer in Barcelona. Currently the tapestry is part of a private collection in Spain, but is in England temporarily to be cleaned and conserved. It will be shown for three weeks only before returning to Spain after Franses’ exhibition.

The tapestry is one of four Henrician tapestries and two important Tudor period textiles that will be exhibited at Franses this Autumn 2018.

Fascinating that Henry VIII would cast himself as St. Paul the Apostle, especially in Acts 19: 18-20:

18 Some believers, too, came forward to admit in detail how they had used spells 19 and a number of them who had practiced magic collected their books and made a bonfire of them in public. The value of these was calculated to be fifty thousand silver pieces.20 In this powerful way the word of the Lord spread more and more widely and successfully.

If Henry VIII was comparing the books in the monasteries he was destroying to the books of magic St. Paul had encouraged the people of Ephesus to burn, I think both Bishop Matthew Parker and John Leland would have disagreed (privately and secretly)!

St. Swithun Wells and the Conversion of St. Paul

Today is the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul.

Acts 9:1-22:
Saul, still breathing murderous threats against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues in Damascus, that, if he should find any men or women who belonged to the Way, he might bring them back to Jerusalem in chains. On his journey, as he was nearing Damascus, a light from the sky suddenly flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, "Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?" He said, "Who are you, sir?" The reply came, "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. Now get up and go into the city and you will be told what you must do."  The men who were traveling with him stood speechless, for they heard the voice but could see no one. Saul got up from the ground, but when he opened his eyes he could see nothing; so they led him by the hand and brought him to Damascus. For three days he was unable to see, and he neither ate nor drank.

And Acts 22: 2-16:

Paul addressed the people in these words: "I am a Jew, born in Tarsus in Cilicia, but brought up in this city. At the feet of Gamaliel I was educated strictly in our ancestral law and was zealous for God, just as all of you are today. I persecuted this Way to death, binding both men and women and  delivering them to prison. Even the high priest and the whole council of elders can testify on my behalf. For from them I even received letters to the brothers and set out for Damascus to bring back to Jerusalem in chains for punishment those there as well." On that journey as I drew near to Damascus, about noon a great light from the sky suddenly shone around me. I fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to me, 'Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?' I replied, 'Who are you, sir?' And he said to me, 'I am Jesus the Nazorean whom you are persecuting.' My companions saw the light but did not hear the voice of the one who spoke to me. I asked, 'What shall I do, sir?' The Lord answered me, 'Get up and go into Damascus, and there you will be told about everything appointed for you to do.' Since I could see nothing because of the brightness of that light, I was led by hand by my companions and entered Damascus.

On December 10, 1591, St. Swithun Wells was executed. Before he died, he said to Richard Topcliffe, Elizabeth I's chief pursuivant and bloody torturer: "I pray God make you a Paul of a Saul, of a bloody persecutor one of the Catholic Church's children."

Alas, 'twas not to be.

Image: "Illumination depicting Paul's conversion, from Livre d'Heures d'Étienne Chevalier (c. 1450–1460), a book of hours by Jean Fouquet now in the Château de Chantilly".